


Awesome

by chockfullofsecrets



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Tickling, Zach could really use a break, not intended to be a shipping fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 12:14:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12481344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chockfullofsecrets/pseuds/chockfullofsecrets
Summary: “Come on, Zach, admit it. Tell me you’re a badass.”Owen tries to tell Zach that he did a good job. It may or may not work.





	1. Chapter 1

The sun’s been up for a while now. He can only tell because he’s been staring at the blue-paned warehouse windows all night (all morning?), watching blearily as light crept through at steeper and steeper angles.

The buzz of the crowd is much quieter than it used to be as everyone settles in to wait for planes and family members and medical attention. Gray and Aunt Claire are curled up next to him, wrapped in the same blanket, his messy hair tucked under her chin. They look calm, comfortable, only her rumpled clothing and a bruise on Gray’s cheek betraying the nightmare of the past twenty-four hours.

Zach knows he doesn’t look nearly as good. He’s pressing himself up against the crates behind him, one fist clenched in the collar of his dozing brother’s shirt because he needs to be sure that Gray is there, that he won’t be snatched away by gaping jaws and sharp teeth without taking Zach with him. 

Something warm nudges his shoulder, and he has to clamp his free hand over his mouth to keep himself from crying out.

Nothing happens. When he opens his eyes again, the man who saved them all is crouching in front of him with a mildly concerned smile, his hand resting gently on Zach’s forearm. “Did I wake you up?”

He shakes his head, and all of a sudden Owen is standing, offering him the same hand. “Care to take a walk with me, then?” His gaze follows Zach’s arm, down to the grasping fingers. “Your brother’s a tough kid; he’ll be alright for five minutes, I promise. Your aunt can take care of him.”

The way he speaks is oddly soothing. Zach imagines him using it to calm an angry dinosaur, talking it away from Gray, and that makes it a little easier for him to get up.

It takes a lot more effort to let go of his brother, and his fists are still clenched in his jacket pockets as he trails after Owen. They walk past the huddled groups of tourists and right out the hangar door into the sunlight; Owen sighs like the world has just been taken off his shoulders, but all Zach can do is squint. 

They walk past a couple smaller buildings, and finally Owen leads him into the shadow of one of them. The man was riding a motorcycle into battle surrounded by raptors just yesterday, but now he slides to the ground, head tipped back against the wall and arms behind his head like he’s got nothing to worry about at all. “So, how’s it going?”

Zach sits with his back to the opposite wall. “Fine.”

Owen brings his arms down to cross them over his chest, and Zach watches his muscles ripple with an almost morbid fascination. The coolest guy he’s ever going to meet, and he probably thinks that Zach’s a idiot. “Is that so.”

“Yeah, thanks to you and Aunt Claire.”

“Mm-hm.” They sit there for a while. He can feel Owen studying him, like he’s some kind of frightened animal. He’s probably right. 

“So… is there a reason we’re out here?”

Owen grins. “You were looking a little stir crazy in there. Also, Gray’s probably not gonna like that chokehold you had him in.”

Zach ducks his head, trying to hide the embarrassment that he knows is all over his face, but the next statement brings it right back up. “You know you did a really great job out there yesterday, right?”

“I… what? Really?”

“Hell yeah. You and your brother tussled with an Indominus Rex and outlived it. And you got all the way from the Gyrospheres back to the main compound in a twenty-year-old jeep. You should be proud of yourself. Really proud. And I’ve been yelling at stupid people for the last twenty-four hours, so trust me when I say you’re probably one of the people who handled this situation the best.” 

He snorts. “I think you’ve got the wrong Mitchell. Gray’s the one who did all that stuff.”

“Hey, now.” Owen scoots over to his side and nudges him in the shoulder. “You can tell me whatever you want, but I’m not stupid. There’s no way that kid jumped the waterfall by himself. And he’s not tall enough to reach the steering wheel on that jeep either.”

“Yeah? Well – he’s the one who knew how to fix the jeep, and he wasn’t being a giant douchebag about the whole thing in the first place!” His voice cracks on the last word, and to his utter dismay there are tears forming in his eyes. 

Owen reaches out for him. “Hey, calm down –“

“I told him that we shouldn’t go back,” Zach says, choking on the admission. It feels like something is coming loose inside him, and he’s so freaking stupid and he’s never going to be able to look Owen in the eye again. “I kept him away from being safe because I didn’t care-“

Owen wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer, and all the vitriolic words are crushed inside him; he can’t do anything but gasp miserably. “Oh, that’s all?” 

The words are light and blameless and wrong – Zach tries to get away from them, scrambling wildly in an attempt to get up. 

“How – how can you even -” 

Owen shakes him gently. “Breathe, Zach. Deep breaths. Come on, you can do it.”

He doesn’t want to. He wants to choke until his lungs shrivel up and he can’t give Gray any more stupid ideas, but he promised Gray that he wouldn’t leave him. So he breathes, Owen’s heartbeat steady under his shoulder. 

An eternity of silence passes until the trainer speaks, calm and steady. “You guys got pretty turned around, in the jungle. In fact, at some point you were pretty much doubling back on your own tracks. So you wouldn’t know it, but that thing was crossing the Gyrosphere fields anyway. You just ran into it before it could get to you.”

“But if we’d gotten back faster, you wouldn’t have needed to waste time looking for us.”

“You wouldn’t have made it back. In fact, if you’d met up with Frankenstein Rex any farther from the waterfall you might not have made it at all.”

A new image springs into his mind. Him and his brother sprinting across the field, those gigantic jaws behind them, opening wider than Gray is tall and closing on him right where their hands join. “Shit,” he says weakly.

“Yep.” Owen nods. “We’d still have been looking for you, though. Your aunt was going nuts.”

“Aunt Claire?” Despite himself, Zach’s lips quirk up.

“She rolled up her sleeves and everything.”

He bites the inside of his cheek. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Oh, definitely.” Owen is grinning at him again, this time a bit more mischievously. “And don’t think I didn’t see you get between your brother and everything else with teeth on that island. Definitely badass material.” 

It actually takes effort not to smile now. “No way.” 

“Yes way. All those dinos just waiting to swipe some delicious Mitchell flesh, and you didn’t even scream. That much.” He makes a claw with his middle three fingers and swipes it past Zach’s side with a mock growl, just grinning wider when he squeaks and pulls away.

Zach panics. “Wait! – I’m not -”

But in the next second, he’s being pulled flush against Owen with one hand as the other prods roughly as his side, and he bursts out laughing. It’s been – what? Years? – since he’s been tickled like this, and he’s totally hopeless at defending himself. The only thing he’s capable of doing is burying his face in his hands and trying to stifle his mirth.

Owen’s chuckling now, the vibrations in his chest warm against Zach’s side. It’s like he’s Gray’s age again, young enough for people to actually care about his feelings, and it’s kind of nice. But it’s also broad daylight, and people could be watching, he can’t just – 

“Come on, Zach, admit it. Tell me you’re a badass.” He shakes his head wildly, buries his face in his knees and wishes his tired body would let him do literally anything except freaking snuggling up to Owen. 

“Please,” he gets out, “I cahahan’t, there’s people right th – gah!”

Owen looks over his head, outside the little alley they’re in. As he does, his relentless fingers slow into a gentle skritching motion. It’s just enough to make Zach think he might start laughing again at any moment, and he bats uselessly at the invading digits as he tries to get air to go into his lungs instead of out of them.

The older man sighs, moving his arm to lightly shake Zach’s shoulder. He hasn’t been touched this much in pretty much forever. “Alright, I get it. No more for now.” He tugs Zach to his feet and gives him a moment to pull himself together and get the stupid smile off his face. “But this isn’t over, you hear me? Next time you better be ready to acknowledge your own awesomeness, or else,” he flexes his fingers and Zach shivers involuntarily, “the claws are coming back.”

Owen’s arm is still around his shoulder, and he guides him back to Gray and Aunt Claire, chattering brightly about something or the other. Zach can’t parse a single word he’s saying, but the odd feeling of lightness in his chest stays until his parents get there and immediately start crying.


	2. Chapter 2

A month later, the doorbell rings. 

Zach checks the peephole; Aunt Claire is fidgeting with her purse strap, half turned around as she levels a stern look at – oh. 

Aware that his mouth is pulling into a smile but not really sure why and a bit concerned about it, Zach backs away from the door and pulls out the best distraction he can think of. “Mom! Gray! Aunt Claire and Owen are here!”

Gray bursts onto the scene and almost flies through the door – Zach has to open it before he hurts himself – and soon they’re both inside. His mom pulls Aunt Claire into the kitchen after a lot of hugging, and Owen sits on the couch next to Gray, who’s ranting about his newest obsession – botany. 

Maybe they’ll end up on an island with man-sized Venus flytraps next, Zach doesn’t even know. He sits as far away from the two of them as possible.

The conversation’s not actually that bad – Owen distracts Gray from any weird tangents by asking a lot of direct questions the way that Zach’s never really gotten the hang of, the animal trainer gestures wildly while explaining the behavior of the big cats he works with at the zoo until he almost hits Gray in the face, and Zach’s not expected to say anything. He waits until the conversation veers into pack behavior, and then goes to grab a drink of water.

It takes a bit longer than expected – his mom and Aunt Claire are leaning towards each other over glasses of wine, their whispers interspersed with giggles, and there’s no way Zach’s going to get involved in that, so he edges around the corners of the room. He’s barely dropped the ice into his glass when there’s a roar from the next room over.

Gray. He books it back to the room, water in hand. Both Gray and Owen are still on the couch, but now Gray’s laid out flat while Owen looms over him, casually explaining something or the other. “So if someone takes the alpha’s food, he’s got to assert dominance, right? But when it’s a cub, he just kind of knocks them over and lays into them without actually hurting anyone. Like play fighting.”

Gray smiles beatifically. “Like tickling?”

Owen shrugs and declares, “Pretty much,” before swooping in to get at Gray’s exposed stomach. His little brother shrieks happily, squirming around until he spots Zach hovering in the doorway.

“Zach, come play with us!”

He almost does it, too. Owen looks over too, wearing that grin, and Zach finds himself returning it, actually takes a step forward before thinking better of it. 

“No thanks, I have better things to do than play your stupid games.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows it was the wrong thing to say. Gray’s face falls, and Owen tilts his head and stares at him. Not mad – Zach is all too familiar with what that looks like, with his parents constantly assuming that he’s trying to hurt Gray – but like he’s trying to figure him out. 

That gives him enough reason to try again. “But if you need me to save you from alpha male over there, I’ll be right upstairs, don’t worry.”

The smile breaks back onto Gray’s face like the sun through clouds, and Owen grants him an approving nod before turning back to Gray – “ you think the alpha can be distracted so easily, brat?”

Zach makes his escape, closing the door to his room and sliding in some earbuds. 

The next hour passes quietly, but Zach gets steadily more embarrassed at his sudden panic. He resolves to stay up here for as long as possible. 

And then there’s a knock on the door. Gray never knocks. Neither does his mom.

“Um, come in?” 

The door creaks open, and none other than Owen Grady’s head pops around the corner of it. “Hey, kid.”

***

He gives the kid a while to calm down before knocking on the door. There’s a quiet “come in”, and when he leans through the doorway Zach is lying on the corner of his bed with one earbud in.

“Nice place you got here.” He solemnly surveys the video game consoles neatly lined up on the shelf and about a week’s worth of dirty laundry. “I never got to ask you how things are going downstairs.”

He stays firmly in the doorway until Zach rolls his eyes and motions him to an old desk chair and waits until Zach gets past the requisite “I’m okay” and “School’s fine” to the breakup with his girlfriend and waking up to deal with all of Gray’s nightmares. Owen nods along, offers some advice and a few sympathetic grunts where he doesn’t think Zach will take any, and then – 

Owen leans forward, chin propped in one hand. “Sounds like you’re doing awesome, all things considered.”

Zach shuffles around and huffs. “Don’t say that.” It’s adorable, especially when he looks down and asks, “Really?’

“’Course. Why else would I say it?” He propels the chair a couple inches forward. “The real questions is… are you going to say it?”

“I thought you forgot about that.”

Owen grins. “And I will. All I need from you to make that happen is three little words. Maybe two, if you use contractions.”

The kid squirms a bit more, but when he meets Owen’s gaze again his eyes are sparkling. He watches in amusement as Zach bunches himself up, ready to leap, and then says defiantly, “You can’t make me say it.”

He laughs. “You sure about that?” 

Zach scrambles for the door of his room, even managing to wrap his fingertips around the edge of the doorframe before Owen grabs the back of his shirt. He grabs the kid’s waist, slinging him back onto his bed as gently as possible.

Pinned to the bed by his shoulder, the kid looks up at him, already half laughing. “What are you laughing about?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s pretty funny you think your reflexes are faster than mine,” Owen says. He pauses, wiggling his fingers in front of the kid’s face. “Bet I can make you laugh about it too.”

Zach’s eyes widen, but before he can say anything Owen decides to wage an attack, fingers fanning over his neck and collarbones.

“Wahahait – shihihitnotthere!”

He shrugs. “The area protecting the subclavian artery is one of the most sensitive places on humans, and there’s a similar spot on most animals. But I bet we can find a few other good ones, right?”

Zach tries to bring his hands up, but this time Owen grabs them and spiders his fingers sideways into the hollow underneath. Zach turns his face so it’s hidden by his arms, but the laughter just keeps coming. He decides that this might take a while and shoves the kid over a bit so he can sit down on the bed’s edge.

He starts working his way down Zach’s ribcage and is rewarded by a sudden stream of begging that Zach is laughing almost too hard to get out.

“What’s the matter?” he asks easily, digging his fingers in. “Does it tickle? Right here?”

Zach shakes his head stubbornly. “No? Well, I guess I’ll have to try harder then.” He rolls up Zach’s shirt to get to his stomach, and the kid shrieks as a single finger starts to scritch at the pale skin there. “Same ticklish spots as your brother, huh?”

Except he’s apparently more ticklish than Gray, because all of a sudden the kid is wheezing. Owen backs off, smoothing his shirt down. “Shit, are you okay? Do you have asthma or something?”

He takes a second to catch his breath and gives Owen a look. “Nah, I’m fine.”

“Don’t you mean…” He wiggles his fingers again, and Zach looks like he’s already trying to fight back laughter.

“Fine, fine! I’m awesome.”

“Yes you are,” Owen says, and sits back. “Now, Zach the Awesome, let’s go get some takeout, because no one in your family knows how to cook.”


End file.
